Husband didn't tell me his BIL is a convicted child sex offender

[DearBee]

We have a young DD (toddler).

The conviction was a few years ago- shortly before we met. DH said he was too ashamed to tell me. Online child sex offences.

DD has been in his (BIL) company occasionally - never alone - at family occasions. DH has said he would never put her at risk. Apparently he is not allowed unsupervised contact with children (obviously!).

I feel like I had a right to know given I am her mother. I would have wanted to make a different decision, and would not have allowed DD in his company at all - ever.

I feel like this is a massive betrayal.

I am reconsidering our marriage, tbh.

He never actually told me the truth - I found out from someone else.

I don't know what I am looking for from this thread. I just feel so betrayed and don't know if/how I can trust him again.

Totally get why you are concerned but remember if you divorce your husband would have contact and you will have no control over who he spends time with in his contact time. Unless there are other red flags for your husband, I would instead look into managing risk programmes and try to get him to understand your concerns.

Your anger is perfectly justified, it was a massive betrayal.
You are right to be reconsidering your marriage.

This is a good, practical point, thank you.

I have told DH that I don't want DD around BIL, and he has agreed (while we are married, at least 🤪).

I'm more just upset that he kept this secret from me. I didn't think we were like that.

Thank you ❤️

It's very painful.

I can understand how he was ashamed. Your child was never at risk.

I totally understand you're hurting I really do, but please do talk to your husband and try to work through this. It's a challenge, I know, but these things come in our lives and we have to deal with them looking at the big picture and as best we can.

Talk to him.

Wtaf. I would be furious. Yes that is a huge betrayal, he is protecting his brother isn’t he.

Sweeping it under the mat and let’s forget about it. You had every right to be told so you could decide if you were comfortable with your child in his company. You husband took that choice away from you

Thank you. We are talking. I just... feel so disconcerted that he has kept something so major from me. I really don't feel like I can trust him at the moment. We have only been married three years and I know marriages have hurdles and ups and downs... I just want to feel like I can trust him again and I don't know how to get there at the moment.

His sister... it's his sister's husband. But yes, exactly. I feel like he was prioritising preserving the wider family and not rocking the boat, and this was put above... my child's safety, and the trust that should exist in our marriage. It's such an awful feeling.

@DearBee but it’s not just DH hiding it - his whole family have pretended it didn’t happen.

he fantasies about young children in a sexual
manner. He could be doing that about your daughter when he sees her at family events. Even if he’s never left unattended with her that was never the sole issue. He is attracted to young children and his family having their young children around him at family events makes my skin crawl.

I couldn’t forgive a partner for minimising this issue and not telling me.

When would have been the right time to tell you? When he met you? When he proposed? When you got married? When you got pregnant? When you gave birth? - the longer he has left it the more difficult a conversation it was going to be. Yes, he should have told you. But I understand why he didn't. He did not want to be defined by what his brother is, and now he realises that he should have told you and may suffer the consequences. I don't think I would advise you to leave him. And you can tell him you understand WHY it was difficult for him to tell you - but he must never, EVER keep anything from you again.

I’d leave him over this.

Children have been secretly abused while in a room with family members who didn't notice. You have a child to protect. You know what to do. When you split, the father will have access - you need some way to prevent him from taking the child into the company of the convicted abuser.

Your child was never at risk.
I disagree.
As I said, children can be and have been abused in the presence of family members without anyone knowing.

Yanbu

I think you and DH shoukd have some couples counselling together to work out how to process this. You are right that this is a massive betrayal. You would not be unreasonable to end the relationship but as pp have pointed out, there could then be a higher risk to your DD, so I wouldn't leap to this right away.

Within a counselling context, you need to get to the point where DH understands the scale and seriousness of the betrayal. Together you need to plan for how to interact with his family going forward - my position would be that any event that is attended by BIL, either your DH goes alone or none of you go. There is no way that any good parent wants their daughter to have a positive familiarity with a child sex offender. She should not be at any event where he is there.

Why on earth are your husband's family willing to spend time with a paedophile?

Has your DSiL stayed with him?!

It's a massive betrayal of trust. Your husband has effectively denied you the ability to make a decision on how to keep your child safe, what you are comfortable with and what risks you are not willing to take. His agreement now that your child will no longer be around BIL is an admission that this option should have been taken from the outset.

Your husband has chosen to prioritise reducing his shame over maintaining the trust within your marriage, and over your child's safety. I would be wondering what else he was keeping from you, and why he felt he had the right to do so. I agree with PP that you need professional help as a couple to help you navigate through this. I would be expecting him to research options for this, and additionally for him to pursue education for himself around safeguarding (these are to two separate issues - the damage to your marital relationship, and your concern about his judgement).

Pretty much everything @RatedDoingMagic said.

I think the ONLY solution is for you, as a couple, to work through this betrayal. And that means you probably need outside help and counselling to do that. Because it IS a betrayal. A huge one. And inevitbaly, it makes you question what other things is he not telling you. He says he's never left your DD in his presence without also being there, but is that true? Perhaps he pops to the loo while he's there but is too scared to tell you now? Does he send photos to his sister?

This is huge and if he can't see that, then that's really quite frightening.

I keep asking myself the same thing. They are a bit... odd. I just didn't realise this would translate to something like this. It all seems to have been hushed up into some weird 'keep the middle class image' thing.

My MIL apparently asked him not to tell me. And he listened to her, which I am seriously unimpressed with, but also unimpressed with her.

You have the problem that the entire family thinks it’s ok for this man to be at family functions. I would say that your child is never attending an event when the BIL is there nor you are. My SIL was dating a man with a violent history who had done prison time. I refused to ever meet him or allow DS to meet him. I had some huge rows with both DH and MIL about this as I refused. They were very liberal minded about how he had served his time. For sex offences and violence I’m not budging. I have done voluntary work with women who have suffered DV and also been involved with projects where people that have very chequered histories have come as clients however there is a huge difference when it comes to socialising with them.

Children are at risk from him and even if he never ever physically touched her he has a mind doesn’t he. We all think and dream about things it’s just that his thoughts are the lowest possible, I wouldn’t want to be me or her near him as who knows what’s in his head.

She has. They don't have kids before anyone asks. I don't know how she manages to sleep next to him at night. I feel sorry for her but also disgusted with her choices.

Even if you decide to forgive your husband, how do you accept his wider family, who have clearly chosen not to object to this person and welcome him to family events? I would have a huge issue with that. The BIL has dabbled in the darkest, most awful things possiblle. It's not like he did a bit of shoplifting when he was a teenager. There's something fundamentally very, very wrong with him and yet your husband's family allows him to remain welcome? How do you get past that?

I personally couldn't be with someone who is happy to hang around someone who is a paedophile. Things getting swept under the carpet by families is exactly how abuse happens.

He's not done drugs, or drunk drove aged 17. He's watched child pornography, which actively harms children. Child sexual abuse stays with people forever. I couldn't knowingly be in a room with someone like that. Maybe his family have the attitude of 'well he hasn't hurt a child personally' but he has. The only acceptable response to child pornography is reporting it immediately to the police.

That would be a dealbreaker for me, no way would I have knowingly had a child with a man where Him and his family maintained contact with a paedophile.

Can you contact the police or social services to check what restrictions are in place but I wouldn’t be happy with my child ever seeing him.

The NSPCC maybe able to offer some practical advice.